Over the past 20 years, the Internet has moved from being a pioneering link between universities and colleges to an integral part of everyday life, both within the home and outside. The ability to link people electronically has allowed remote parts of the world to share information and communication in real time. Access to the Internet and information communication technology has refined the way people conduct their day-to-day business and their lives. The ability to communicate over the network (e-mail) and to share information between people thousands of miles apart (chat groups) has permitted collaboration and dissemination of data on a scale never before achieved.
With the surge in connectivity have also come questionable applications of the linkage. Whereas once parents could screen mail delivered to their front door and teachers could exercise some control over the information flow to their students, desktop computers have provided open access to both the home and the school. Regular e-mail and open access chat rooms are generally not secure. Spam is a regular and generally unwanted addition to most e-mail accounts. Although there are some screening tools and blockages, such as Zwallet, Prontomail and JustSafe Filtered Email, that can be employed to try to regain control over the flow of information, and free one class/one teacher services such as Gaggle.net, they are not adequate to the task.
The sharing of information between students in a collaborative environment has been an educational goal since the first teachers promoted the first pen-pals. The greater is the number of participants, the more enriched is the discussion and concomitant learning experience. The creation of a “shared learning” environment and relationships among the participants over the Internet carries with it the need to create a secure “virtual classroom” in which the teacher is still the person responsible for the children's intellectual well-being. This responsibility requires monitoring and filtering of the transmitted information without making the system onerous to either the monitor (teacher) or the students.